Think about it. You ask one strategic question of your customers and the business equivalent of clouds separating and a chorus of angels singing commences simultaneously and immediately; you start to enjoy success as you’ve never seen before. Your branding message, influenced by newly captured insights is clicking. You are building your client base. All because of one question.

Okay, in the end it probably isn’t that simple. At the same time, it’s not that difficult either.

So think about it. What’s the one question you would ask? What is the biggest head scratch that keeps you up at night?

Recently, for hotel heavyweight Hyatt, the question was “How do YOU travel?” The chain learned a lot. And all of it driven towards improving the traveler’s experience. One of the ‘a-ha’ moments centered on the fact that those traveling for business place a high value on trying interesting local cuisine. Think that didn’t start a big discussion in Hyatt’s food and beverage division? I bet it did.

By the way, Hyatt did the whole research project through social media. Smart! Because doing so, allowed the company to gauge guest sentiments in real time on a lot of different topics and in different parts of the world.